Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ QB Baker Mayfield made it clear who he feels deserves the blame for last Thursday’s particularly depressing loss to the Atlanta Falcons:

Baker Mayfield.

For many, the defense, which is coordinated by Todd Bowles, a person you may know better as the team’s head coach, is the most at fault.

Advertisement

After all, the team had a 28-14 lead in the fourth quarter against Atlanta and didn’t preserve it.

But whether he genuinely believes it or whether he was trying to take the heat off Bowles, Mayfield told reporters after the game and again Wednesday that he feels the team lost because the offense didn’t do its job.

“In a game like that… like I said postgame, it comes down to the offense,” Mayfield said Wednesday. “You’re up two scores, you have a chance to put the game away and you don’t. The easy thing to do is point at the defense, because their situation is the last thing you see in the game. But if you look at the whole game, you look at the way it played, blame me, don’t blame Todd.”

To Mayfield’s point, offensive mistakes ended up biting Tampa Bay.

Advertisement

About midway through the fourth quarter, Tampa, leading by eight, drove into Atlanta territory with a golden chance to make it a two-possession game and, at worst, make it extremely unlikely for Atlanta to come back.

The Falcons ended up scoring a touchdown and missing a two-point conversion to cut the deficit to two.

At this point, there were roughly three and a half minutes left, and all Tampa needed to do was sustain a drive to seal the win. Instead, Tampa gained eight yards over six plays, punted away, leading to Atlanta kicking a game-winning field goal.

The Buccaneers’ slide has paralleled Mayfield’s cooling off individually.

Advertisement

Through the first nine games, Mayfield had a TD/INT ratio of 16/2, and the Bucs had a 6-3 record.

In the five games since, Mayfield has thrown almost as many interceptions (five) as touchdowns (six), and Tampa is 1-4.

The good news for Mayfield and Tampa is that there are still three games left, and all three are winnable. Two of them are against Carolina, which is tied with Tampa for the NFC South lead at 7-7. The middle game is on the road at Miami, which is 6-8 and just got embarrassed in Pittsburgh.

If Mayfield can play like he did the first nine games of the season, the Bucs will probably win the division and save Bowles’ job. If he can’t, well, more misery might be in store.